At different points in the Future, the Doctor, Amy, and River all met the future ruler of Great Britain - Queen Elizabeth the Tenth.
With the wedding of Prince Harry and American actress Meghan Markle last year on May 19th, there were a lot of online Whovians who squealed with delight that their union would produce an heir who would be the ancestor of Elizabeth X.
To me, that was just cruel. It infers that not only would something tragic have to happen to Harry's older brother Prince William, but to his three children (George, Charlotte, and Louis) as well.
Instead, I think Harry and Meghan's union will have an effect on the racial background of Elizabeth X, but in a more tangential way. That an American divorcee has been accepted into the Royal family is nothing new, (although last time, the King had to abdicate in order to marry.) But that a Prince of the Realm has been able to marry the woman he loves - who happens to be biracial - might open minds to the possibility that a future heir to the Throne might wish to do the same. It would certainly show that the British Empire is not homogeneous in its make-up.
Who knows? Maybe farther down the line, one of Prince William's descendants will fall in love with someone from India, a former bulwark of the Empire to add even more racial diversity to the Royal lineage.
Hey, if it was good enough for Phileas Fogg, it's good enough for a Crown Prince....
From the TARDIS Data Core wiki: In a deleted scene from "Human Nature", when the Tenth Doctor turned himself into John Smith, he left instructions for Martha Jones, one of which was to not let him eat pears, as he did not like them and did not want to wake up tasting that.
The wiki states that this was deleted, but perhaps it was added in to those scenes from the video which Martha fast-forwarded through.
But this apparently wasn't just a pearsonality quirk of the Tenth Incarnation. (Not sorry about that, Chief.) Because in his mental note to his next incarnation, the Twelfth Incarnation advised never to eat pears. Earlier in the episode “Hell Bent”, he had also given that advice to Clara before his mind was wiped of any memory of her. His reasoning was that pears were too squishy and would make her chin wet.
This dislike of pears wasn't limited to Earth Prime-Time. We can see it in BookWorld as well.
In 1995, Paul Cornell’s novel “Human Nature” was published in which the Seventh Incarnation (on TV played by Sylvester McCoy) followed the same basic storyline and gave similar advice to his companion, Bernice Summerfield (to be found only in BookWorld and the Audioverse… so far.)
That advice to Martha was for naught, though. Later we did see him stalking about his room eating a pear.
One might think there was more to the story than just the fact that they were squishy and perpetrators of chin-wetting. And if you’re a fanficcer, you could explore that possibility. And I have a suggestion along those lines.
Originally, I was going to give you fanficcers the chance to write a story in which the Doctor – in any Incarnation and with any companion you chose – met a race of aliens who resembled pears. And I may still run with that idea, but it does put me in mind of my dyslexia-challenged namesake, Tybo the giant humanoid carrot from the last episode of the original ‘Lost In Space’.
But it could be a story about pears being aliens infesting Toobworld. They wouldn’t be a threat, even though they would be harvested and eventually eaten by humans. In fact, they might have the same docile nature (and willingness to be eaten) as Al Capp’s schmoos, Larry Niven’s Bandersnatch, J. Michael Straczynski’s spoo, and Douglas Adams’ Dish of the Day.
It would still gross out the Doctor though, I’m assuming. But rather than fighting the inevitable, he tried to dissuade only a few people along the way with his feeble reasoning and to personally vow to never, ever, eat them himself.
But I keep thinking there should be more to the story, perhaps some historical angle. And do you know what first came to mind?
The death of Duane Allman back in 1971.
From Wikipedia: Allman was killed in a motorcycle crash shortly after the release and initial success of At Fillmore East. On October 29, 1971, while the band was on a break from touring and recording, Allman was riding his Harley-Davidson Sportster motorcycle at high speed on Hillcrest Avenue, in the western part of Macon. As he approached Bartlett Street, a flatbed truck carrying a lumber crane stopped suddenly in the intersection, forcing him to swerve sharply. He struck either the back of the truck or the ball on the lumber crane and was thrown from the motorcycle, which landed on top of him and skidded another 90 feet with him pinned underneath it, crushing his internal organs. He was alive when he was taken to a hospital, but despite immediate medical treatment, he died several hours later from massive internal injuries.
Until I read that today, I was one of the many who bought into the legend that Allman was killed when his bike crashed into a truck full of peaches. And that the following Allman Brothers album was entitled “Eat A Peach” as a rallying cry for revenge against the fuzzy fruit. (I’m not sure but I think the title was a nod to one of Duane Allman’s quote, concerning the two-legged species of peaches.)
So what if the TARDIS landed in Macon back in 1971, going where the TARDIS thought the Doctor needed to go, not where he wanted to go? And some malevolent force was weaponizing those alien pears, disrupting their placid existence. During the battle with the enemy, the villain caused that truck to stop suddenly which led to the death of Allman.
"Eat A Pear" was suggested as an album title - considering the alien pears and the fact that the crash occurred on Bartlett Avenue. But the Doctor might have suggested that "Eat A Peach" just flowed better.
It may have started earlier in the history of pop culture, but it could be that Barnabas Collins was the vanguard for the new perspective on vampires – that of being the heroes of their tale. As my FB friend Matt Hickman pointed out, it really came into its own by the 1980s – ‘Forever Knight’, ‘Moonlight’, among others. (Although I think most of the vampiric protagonists are still considered anti-heroes, like Bill in ‘True Blood’ and the Salvatore brothers in ‘The Vampire Diaries’.)
One of the problems I’ve found with ‘Doctor Who’ is the unanimous mindset of the villainous alien races who all seem to be in lockstep in their determination to conquer the human race. Aren’t there any “Peaceniks” back home on their planets who object to the hive-mind hatred of those who are not like them?
I can understand the Daleks, the Cybermen, and the Sontarans. It’s almost a religious doctrine for the Daleks to hate everything that is not like them. Even humans “pulped” to become Daleks are treated with disdain (and then destroyed) by “Pure” Daleks. As for Sontarans and the Cybermen, it could be a matter of programming. For the Sontarans, it could be ingrained into them via their enforced indoctrination of all things Sontaran as soon as their clone batch is “hatched”. And it’s probably all in the wiring and circuitry for the Cybermen, hotwired into their minds with the added emotion dampener to keep them in line.
There were exceptions of course. There was Van Statton’s prized possession in his underground Utah warehouse and “Rusty”, last seen in “Twice Upon A Time”. But they went against their inherent programming reluctantly, each blocked by inhibitions on their systems. As for Dalek Caan with his manipulations of Davros’ plans for the reality bomb, well, Caan was just batshit crazy.
Among the Sontarans, Strax was the exception. I don’t know if that was supposed to be Strax seen during the “reward” lap made by the Tenth Incarnation of the Doctor at the end of “The End of Time”. But if not, they were from the same clone batch. And Strax was honorably serving penance - if not for attempting to kill Martha and Mickey than for some other altercation versus the Doctor. And he served Madame Vastra because she and Jenny probably saved his life after the battle of Demon’s Run.
Then there are Danny Pink and Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart who were both transformed into Cybermen after death and were able to fight that encoded programming of the Cybermen. In fact, in a separate Fanficcers’ Friend file, I like to think that the Cyber-Brigadier is still out there somewhere in the galaxy. I hope he’s out there at least in fan fiction.
That’s twice I’ve mentioned fan fiction. And that’s what this post is – one of my Fanficcers’ Friends blog posts. And I’m turning my attention to another group of alien villains who are of a monolithic mindset….
The Weeping Angels.
From the TARDIS Data Core wiki: The Weeping Angels were an extremely powerful species of quantum-locked humanoids (sufficient observation changes the thing being observed), so called because their unique nature necessitated that they often covered their faces with their hands to prevent trapping each other in petrified form for eternity by looking at one another. This gave the Weeping Angels their distinct "weeping" appearance. They were known for being "kind" murderous psychopaths, eradicating their victims "mercifully" by dropping them into the past and letting them live out their full lives, just in a different time period. This, in turn, allowed them to live off the remaining time energy of the victim's life. However, when this potential energy paled in comparison to an alternative power source to feed on, the Angels were known to kill by other means, such as snapping their victims' necks.
‘DOCTOR WHO’ “BLINK”
The Doctor: Fascinating race, the Weeping Angels. The only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely. No mess, no fuss, they just zap you into the past and let you live to death. The rest of your life used up and blown away in the blink of an eye. You die in the past, and in the present they consume the energy of all the days you might have had. All your stolen moments. They're creatures of the abstract. They live off potential energy.
The lonely assassins, they used to be called. No one quite knows where they came from, but they're as old as the universe, or very nearly, and they have survived this long because they have the most perfect defence system ever evolved. They are quantum-locked. They don't exist when they're being observed. The moment they are seen by any other living creature, they freeze into rock. No choice. It's a fact of their biology. In the sight of any living thing, they literally turn to stone. And you can't kill a stone. Of course, a stone can't kill you either. But then you turn your head away, then you blink, and oh yes it can.
O’Bservation – I think the Angels appeared with the “Big Bang”, survivors of the previous universe. And being called “assassins”…. I don’t think their attacks on certain individuals were just to satisfy their hunger pangs. I think some of them actually worked for others. (This was hinted at in the final episode of ‘Class’.) And I bet their first employers in the new universe were fellow “Big Bang” survivors – the Shadows, seen in ‘Bablyon 5’.
“The Lonely Assassins” appear to be in lockstep when it comes to attacking humans, but it’s due to their need to feed on that untapped energy potential concept. But what if there was a Weeping Angel who had a conscience?
And that would be the crux of some fan fiction. What if there was an Angel who, like some current vampires, felt guilty about the taking of innocent lives? But feeding off the untapped energy of wild animals sent back in Time would not be sustaining due to their shortened lifespans. However, in a way it would be a boon to those animals if the Angel was able to send them back to a time when there were only natural predators, no humans. (I could see that Angel back in the Old West, using the power to send bison back in Time to before humans crossed the North American continent.)
I think it might be at the turn of the 20th Century that this Angel had its consciousness raised by the ascent of Mankind’s depravity against each other. Perhaps the Angel finally saw its* feeding on anyone when it needed such sustenance as being a continuation of such a depraved indifference to humans.
But there were people out there on Earth who deserved such a fate. And maybe like Dexter Morgan, the Angel decided to focus its hunt for prey on such vile, murderous scum like serial killers, murderers, child molesters, etc,
It appears that each Angel would have a locked location and time to which each victim was transported. For example – Billy Shipton was sent back to 1969 just as the Doctor and Martha Jones were. Had he been touched by the Angel who sent Cathy Nightingale back, he would have ended up in 1920 Hull just as she was.
I’d like to think that this particular Angel had strengthened his power with a steady diet of that untapped energy potential to expand the range of his powers. For instance, he could send his victims back to the deep Arctic, ages before humans were able to reach there.
And so there’s the basics for fanfic – a Weeping Angel serving as a bounty hunter on Earth, tracking down the scum of the Earth and dispatching them to a quick death in the past.
This Angel would spend his days quantum-locked, frozen in place as a stone statue, preferably at an outdoor yard for garden equipment. But then at night, when the employees and the customers had left and it wasn’t very visible in the darkness, the Angel would continue its hunt for its prey.
As you can see, I’ve festooned this post with pictures of the type of statue which that Angel might assume. Whether it still actually had wings or not would be up to you if you wrote up a story following my fanfic template.
Interested in tackling such an idea? If you do write one and post it somewhere, let me know. I’d like to read it!
As pre-publicity for the official arrival of Jodie Whittaker in the role of the Doctor, she posed with a group of women (I’m assuming fans) who were dressed in the same garb as the Thirteenth Incarnation of the Doctor.
Yeah, it’s a publicity picture. But I also see it as the launch pad for a fan fiction isuggestion!
The easy route would be that it shows the aftermath of some techno-babble mishap within the TARDIS which created all of these clones of her.
But even though these ladies do look similar to Ms. Whittaker, they are not exact enough to be considered clones.
I think a more interesting story would be that the Doctor and her three companions – Yasmin Khan, Ryan Sinclair, and “tele-kinsman” Graham O’Brien – needed to make an emergency landing on an M-class planet inhabited by humanoids. While taking care of whatever the problem was, the Doctor rescues a young girl who was almost got killed by some alien threat. Both problems solved, the team leaves the planet.
But the Doctor had an effect on that little girl. She tells her story, basically preaching it as an intervention by the god of those people. In the beginning, her tale is met with skepticism and resistance, but evidence - in the form of the corpse of the alien menace perhaps – buttresses her story and eventually a movement begins to grow. A religious following, if you will. There might still be resistance – that little girl might be faced with opposition on a par with that met by the children of Lourdes or Joan d’Arc. She may even have been put to death, making her a martyr to her calling.
And then the Doctor returns to that world, but some thousand or so years later, and finds this faith in her incarnation as the Doctor is now worshipped as their god. And all the acolytes wear her clothing as the symbol of being her – Her! – “priestesses”.
But there could be a dangerous downside. Maybe because their new version of a god is a woman, there is a backlash against men. (I’m writing this in the maelstrom of the Kavanaugh investigation backlash by Fox and friends.) Perhaps many males are sacrificed as babes. Only enough are allowed to live – as chattel – to replenish the gene pool.
The Doctor and her companions feel the need to rectify the mistake that they began.
That’s it. That’s just the bare bones of the premise I’m suggesting. This is a “Fanficcers’ Friend” post, after all. I only give you an idea to run with.
But should you write some Thirteenth Incarnation of the Doctor fanfic based on this picture – even if you don’t use any of my suggestions – let me know where I can go to read it. I’d be keen to see what you came up with. And if you like, I could even share it here in the “Who’s On First?” blogAthon.
The
Hillbilly Beast dates back to Daniel Boone’s day. The tales describe it as a
hairy, smelly Bigfoot like being that howls. This legend was featured on the
fourth season of History Channel's Monsters.
The
Cherokee Indians have a rich and in depth relationship with nature and they
claim to have witnessed the Sasquatch many times, while the creatures sat to
dig for roots and eat other greens. The Native Americans have come to
understand that the diet of this hairy being, is as wide and varied as our own.
In fact, the Indian tribes have profound respect for the Wildman of the Woods
and they believe the creature to have supernatural abilities.
One of the most interesting reports of supernatural capacity, comes from a
witness (not on the Monster Quest program) who claims to have seen the creature
stepping into....... and out of........ a interdimensional gateway or star
gate! The witness became so fascinated with what he had observed, that he got a
pair of binoculars and continued to surveil the location on aregular basis. The
witness steadfastly claims that on numerous occasions the "gateway"
was used by the mysterious man-beast. The invisible entry way appears to
onlookers, as rolling heatwaves rising up from the ground, when it is viewed from
a distance.
Others who have come into close proximity with the Beast, state that it has the
ability to communicate telepathically with them.
The pride of the South, the Hillbilly Beast, roams the cypress swamps
of Kentucky unchecked.
Tales of the beast can be traced back to long before settlement as we know it
arrived. The Cherokee people still share the stories passed down from their
ancestors, legends that describe a wizened mythical man-like creature, stalking
the woods and imbued with supernatural powers. Later settlers used the
mysterious hill critters as scapegoats for disappearing livestock and as
threats to intimidate particularly unruly children. Even Daniel Boone, noted
fearless explorer and hyperbolic historian, was said to have recounted a run-in
with a hair-covered bipedal giant that chased him through the hills of
Kentucky.
Having established the
Hillbilly Beast as the boogieman to face the Doctor, here’s the TV episode
which I would cross over with ‘Doctor Who’:
‘DANIEL BOONE’
“LOVE AND EQUITY”
From the IMDb:
In a semi-comic episode, Prater Beasley is called back to
Boonesborough to get rid of a ground squirrel problem. Unfortunately, his
methods get him into trouble, as he gets accused of fraud and even witchcraft.
The Widow Jones was not officially a widow –
her husband had disappeared seven years before and in a month she would be able
to have him declared legally dead by the magistrate of Boonesborough:
Cincinnatus. But one day before the
verdict was to be announced, Jones showed up alive. He claimed that he spent the last seven years
as a captive of the Indians, but his wife didn’t believe him.
And she was right – he spent those seven years in the company of the
Gallifreyan Time Lord known as the Doctor.
The seven years in which Mrs. Jones was alone were from her perspective. For Mr. Jones, he had only been in the
company of the Doctor for a few days.
Here’s my suggestion as to how this all played out:
The Doctor and his/her current Companion* were ostensibly planning to go back
to 458 BC to satisfy the Doctor’s curiosity as to the real reason why Lucius
Quintius Cincinnatus walked away from his dictatorship of Rome when he had
complete power. (The Doctor didn’t trust
the farmer turned statesman because of his opposition to a code of law which
could have protected the commoners.)
From Wikipedia: Lucius Quinctius or Quintius Cincinnatus (c. 519 – c. 430 BC)
was a Roman patrician, statesman, and military leader of the early Republic who
became a legendary figure of Roman virtues—particularly Roman manliness and
civic virtue—by the time of the Empire.
Despite his old age, he worked his own small farm until an
invasion prompted his fellow citizens to call for his leadership. He came from
his plough to assume complete control over the state but, upon achieving a
swift victory, relinquished his power and its perquisites and returned to his
farm. His success and immediate resignation of his near-absolute authority with
the end of this crisis (traditionally dated to 458 BC) has often been cited as
an example of outstanding leadership, service to the greater good, civic
virtue, lack of personal ambition, and modesty.
But the TARDIS had other plans for “her lover”. Instead of bringing them to the original
Cincinnatus, she brought them to where
Daniel Boone’s friend Cincinnatus was the local merchant. She landed back in 1767 just outside of
Boonesborough, Kaintucky, where the colonists and the Indians were being
terrorized by some kind of monster in the cypress swamps of the territory.
Jones had been out hunting ground squirrels when he was set upon by
Indians. (His prowess as a squirrel
hunter had been the main reason the ground squirrels had been kept in check
with regards to the orchards planted by the settlers. And the various ground squirrel recipes concocted
by Jones and his wife were relished by those who were fortunate enough to
sample their dishes at festive gatherings and the like,)
Jones made a run for it, hoping to reach the
safety of the fort before the Indians could capture him, but he lost his way
and found himself deeper into the wild, in unfamiliar territory. And that’s when the TARDIS materialized. The Indians pulled back, watching what
happened, perhaps thinking the TARDIS had come from the gods.
And that’s when the Doctor and the Companion step out, leading the spying
Indians into the belief that they were no more than “palefaces” intruding on
their territory. While asking Jones for
specifics as to where they landed, the Doctor and Companion and Jones were
ambushed by the Indians. But just as
suddenly, the Indians are attacked by the beast.
Jones rushed past the Doctor and enters the TARDIS for protection, and the Time
Lord and the Companion get back inside as well.
Jones urges the Doctor to use any weapons he has to attack the Indians
as well as the monster, but we all know the TARDIS isn’t equipped with
weapons. The Doctor instead presses
Jones for information about the so-called Hillbilly Beast.
If I was writing this fanfic, I’d have the TARDIS track down the community of
these sasquatch and find that they are just as terrified of the beast who attacked. It could turn out to be that they are
stranded explorers from another world (and very Chewbacca-like. Let the audience wonder if there could be a connection
between them.) The Doctor would figure out
what the problem was with the dangerous beast and once the crisis was solved, the
Doctor would offer to bring the castaway “sasquatch” back to their homeworld. And Jones would be offered a trip to another world
as well. Not wishing to get back too quickly to his harridan of a wife, Jones would probably accept.
However, when they traveled back to Earth once
the last sasquatch had disembarked, seven years had passed although it didn’t
feel that way to Jones for whom only a few days had elapsed.
Wondering how he was going to explain all of this to his wife, the Doctor just
shrugs it off and tells him just to claim that he had been held captive by the
Indians all those years. Surely she
would believe that. (But as we know from
that episode, she didn’t.)
But before Jones could depart the TARDIS, the Doctor offered to replace his wardrobe, which had been ravaged by both the Indians and the Hillbilly Beast. And so he was given one of the Doctor's old outfits - a black coat, a blue vest, and a dress shirt and pants.
This is what got me thinking about connecting this episode of 'Daniel Boone' to 'Doctor Who'. Jones' clothes in the trial scene near the end of the episode were far better than those worn by his neighbors - not even Cincinnatus in his function as the magistrate was dressed as well. Those clothes from the Doctor were not the type of clothing which could have survived seven years in the wild living as a prisoner of the Indians. The only one at the trial in 1774 who was better dressed than Jones was the patriot Patrick Henry.
*If you do choose to write up this fanfic story,
the choice of which Doctor and which Companion(s) who would be involved should be
left entirely up to you.
I’m starting this blog post in early October of 2018 and hopefully I’ll remember to add to it once I see the new series which begins this coming Sunday. (Woohoo!)
It is a thrill to see that an O’Brien will now be part of the team inside the TARDIS. Granted, he’s an O’Brien from England, perhaps a transplant from Ireland, but go back far enough in the family tree and I’m sure I could cobble together a theory of relateeveety to connect Graham O’Brien (the character to be played by Bradley Walsh) to the televersion of myself in Toobworld. Everything depends on the expansion of the character’s biography as the show progresses.
Before this, family pride in ‘Doctor Who’ was supplied in the Real World by actress Maureen O’Brien, who joined the cast as Vicki Pallister (after the departure of Carole Ann Ford as the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan.)
But now we’ll have a fictional member of the family in the TARDIS, an O’Brien who will hopefully bring honor to the family name. (Two things I fear – one that Graham O’Brien will be killed off before the season is over, or even worse, that he’ll prove to be a turncoat and a threat to the Doctor and the others. But like I said, the show begins in five days and I’ll have the answers to this question – and the inspiration for more “Who’s On First?” posts – before the end of the year.)
I’m ending this now at this point. I may be adding more in an update.
Back in September, an intriguing discussion thread began on the "Doctor Who" Facebook page which spoke to the Crossoverist in me.....
Thomas Pritchard to Doctor Who Want to see what people come up with: What is the wildest and most unconventional crossover you could think of mine would be 'Doctor Who' and 'Game of Thrones'.
Here were some of the suggested crossovers that came up. Some are expected, but others are imaginative and even out of left field....
'Rick And Morty' 'Saved By The Bell' 'The X-Files' 'GLOW' 'Timeless' 'The Monkees' 'The Golden Girls' 'The Dukes Of Hazzard' 'Lost' 'Z Nation' 'The Time Tunnel' 'Fringe' 'Bob The Builder' 'Downton Abbey' 'M*A*S*H' 'Keeping Up Appearances' 'Stargate SG-1' 'Star Trek' 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'
'Death In Paradise' 'The Librarians' 'Lucifer' 'Supernatural' 'The Young Ones' 'Charlie Brown' 'Outlander' 'Bonanza' 'Firefly' 'Wallander' 'Scooby-Doo' 'Gilmore Girls' 'Emmerdale' 'Pinky & The Brain' 'Tele-Tubbies' 'Days Of Our Lives' 'The Munsters' 'Kingdom Hearts' 'Grey's Anatomy' 'Magnum P.I.' 'Broadchurch' 'The Fraggles' 'The Office' 'Red Dwarf' 'Hogan's Heroes' 'Blackadder' 'Dexter' 'Sesame Street' 'Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood' 'QI' 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' 'Oz'
I offered up the pictures of two I've suggested in the past:
[Thanks to Caeric ArcLight]
[Thanks to Jim & Tay Mueller]
Of all those suggestions, one jumped out at me and piqued my interest. Kim Strattion suggested 'American Pickers'.
Have you ever heard of it? Do you watch it?
From Wikipedia:'American Pickers' is an American reality television series that premiered on January 18, 2010 on the History channel, produced by A&E Television Networks in collaboration with Cineflix Media.
The show follows antique and collectible pickers Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz who travel around the United States to buy or "pick" various items for resale, for clients, or for their own personal collections.
Mike Wolfe made a cameo as himself on Season 15/Episode 17 of 'NCIS' March 13, 2018 "One Man's Trash" .
Here was my response to Kim Stratton: Not a bizarre idea. Turns out somebody’s grandpa in Grover’s Mill had an alien artifact tucked away in his attic since the supposed War of the Worlds in the late 1930s. LOL And yes, I am cribbing from "Buckaroo Banzai". But no matter the plot line, if 'American Pickers' could cross over with 'NCIS', why not with the Doctor?
Another crossover with any show would get Mike Wolfe a berth in the Television Crossover Hall of Fame.....
Tele-genetics are strong. Exact replicas of DNA strands repeat often in the human race of Toobworld. (Although often other characters might not see how similar certain characters are to each other.)
Exact likenesses can repeat in a family down through the ages. We've seen that the Simon family tree had exact copies of brothers Rick and AJ down through the generations, back to the American colonial period.
We have such an example along the timeline for 'Doctor Who'.
HA-HA & CRAIG OWENS
In 2010, the Doctor was stranded on Earth when the TARDIS left him behind, probably affected by the temporal rifts created by "The Lodger" who lived upstairs from Craig Owens. So the Doctor moved in temporarily with Craig to investigate.
Over a year later, the Doctor dropped by again to visit Craig and found that he and Sophie now had a baby boy named Alfie (but who preferred to be known as Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All.)
I don't know if Sophie and Craig had any more children, but since Alfie was the only one who has appeared on our TV screens, we're going to focus on him as the progenitor of a lineage in 'Doctor Who' which had at least one echo of Craig Owens' DNA.
It's not a perfect resemblance, but 1,000 years after the destruction of the Tiberian Galaxy (by my estimate, at some point after the 60th Century), there was a soldier known as Ha-Ha. It's not a perfect case of double vision, but the argument could be made that Craig Owens' DNA combination was reborn in Ha-Ha.
I'm not claiming that I came up with that theory of relateeveety. Plenty of other fans of the Doctor noticed how much they looked alike.
Here's how somebody described it on a Reddit page:
One of the soldiers from Nightmare in Silver...
Was he the descendant (or son?) of Craig Owens? aka Was that supposed to be interpreted as Stormageddon?
"I've heard about the cyberman since I was in my cradle."
I belong to a few 'Doctor Who' Facebook pages, one of which is aptly named "Doctor Who".
Back in August, fellow member Caiera Su'mera posted a comment in a thread dealing with the Weeping Angels, which eventually got around to why Amy and Rory are permanently stuck in their personal timeline there in New York City.
She wrote: I do have a weak theory that intertwines [Amy & Rory] with [the Doctor's] past and would be the real reason for not rescuing them [from their banishment to 1938]:
Rory and Amy are in fact Susan's real parents and before they died, they had one more adventure with the First Doctor whom they told Susan was her grandfather and he then took care of her when they died. I don't think that's weak at all. I think that's a brilliant idea!
The mystery behind Susan being the Doctor's grand-daughter needs to be resolved - it's been over fifty years! And it should be done while we are fortunate enough to still have Carol Ann Ford with us.
The only quibble I can think of is this:
The note from Rory only mentions the adoption of Anthony Brian Williams in 1946. He never tells his Dad about River being his grand-daughter, so why couldn't there have been another child in the family?
Okay, another quibble....
Amy actually stated in "Asylum of the Daleks" that she could no longer have children because of what Madame Kovarian and the Silence had done to her while they were transforming her unborn baby Melody into a weapon to destroy the Doctor.
From the Doctor Who Answers Wiki: As Amy said in "Asylum of the Daleks", whatever Kovarian & the Silence did to her while she was pregnant with Melody left her unable to have any more children. We don't have details of just what was done to her or why it had this effect. Her inability to have more children may not have been the purpose of what was done, just a side-effect of whatever they were doing to turn baby Melody (River Song) into a weapon against the Doctor (see "A Good Man Goes to War"). The Silence would be unlikely to care what damage they did or didn't do to Amy, as long as they got the baby they wanted. (Madame Kovarian, though, showed that she was the type who'd positively enjoy doing damage.) It also could simply have been the trauma of those events.
But this is sci-fi. Anything can be resolved with good old-fashioned techno-babble. And besides... what makes Amelia Pond the expert?
I think getting double-blasted back in Time by Weeping Angels may have undone the physical damage done by their sadistic experimentation. Only Amy didn't know that, having only that final diagnosis delivered in 2012. If so, then I think it must have been a bigger surprise than usual for them both when she was told by a new doctor in the late 1930's that she was with child.
That would be the beginning of the fanfic which would kick off the splainin for Susan's background on the show.
I think she was born in 1940, like the actress who played her (Carole Ann Ford). But at an early age, her life was at risk because throughout Time and Space there are enemies of the Doctor who would love to exact revenge through Amy and Rory and through their children as well,
Before Susan even turned four years of age, the Pond-Williams family must have been attacked. Now Amy and Rory the former Roman were more than prepared through their time with the Doctor to defend themselves. But Susan was just a toddler at best and more human than Melody because she would have been born outside of TARDIS influence.
Somehow Amy and Rory were able to contact the first incarnation of the Doctor and beseeched him to take Susan away to protect her.
It was a shot in the dark in reaching any of his incarnations, and they were probably thinking only in terms of "the Raggedy Man" but would more than willing to get help from any version they could reach.
However they tried to contact the Doctor, it must have been something which was noticed by that first Incarnation who was a keen student of life on that third rock from the Sun. And so he answered the call. Knowing the wibbly-wobbly nature of Time (if not in that exact wording at the time), the Doctor accepted their story that they had previously met.
First helping Amy and Rory to vanquish the current threat against them and hopefully establishing a cover for them to keep them safe from any future danger, the Doctor then took Susan away in the TARDIS back with him to Gallifrey.
Could it be that the Doctor called her this because it was a reminder of her Terran evolutionary background?
Those are the bare bones of a fanfic story about Susan's backstory. If it inspires you to flesh it out with more details, I'd love to read what you come up with.
Just a few details I would suggest - those early years would be about the Doctor on Gallifrey before he got so bored that he had to steal a Type 40 TARDIS and run away, now with a teenaged Susan in tow. That would mean the Doctor would need a Companion right there on Gallifrey, someone who could help him in raising Susan. (Let's face it - would you trust that old crotchety first incarnation to raise her on his own?)
It could be a fellow Gallifreyan, not necessarily a Time Lord. I've always maintained that while all Time Lords are Gallifreyan but not all Gallifreyans are Time Lords. They are all of the same race and have the two hearts, but the ability to regenerate is bestowed on those whom the ruling council deems worthy.
I think that first Companion would be a Gallifreyan commoner with no ability to regenerate. I could see her serving as a nanny/teacher for Susan as she grew up. And I think she would be of an age comparable to that incarnation of the Doctor at that time.
I also picture the Doctor as being the First Incarnation as played by Richard Hurndell in the 25th anniversary special "The Five Doctors". In my Toobworld view, he was how the Doctor looked when he and Susan were first introduced to each other by Rory and Amy. When it came time to steal the TARDIS to escape the ennui he felt on Gallifrey, the Doctor had "aged a bit".
Even though she was in her thirties when they were reunited, but he was now looking as he did when he was slightly younger, neither made mention of it. That's just how it goes with those who are Time-crossed. Just ask the Eleventh Incarnation and River Song!
Finally I think an impetus for Susan and the Doctor to flee Gallifrey would involve the death of that nanny.....
When the Doctor was reunited with Amy and Rory, he couldn't tell them about it because it had not happened yet in their timeline.
At any rate, that's my embellishment of Caiera Su'mera's original fanfic suggestion.
Remember, if you write it up, let me know. I'd like to read it and I bet Caiera would enjoy it as well.
The idea behind this meme has been around for a while in Facebook, but this has been the best one because it has added at least one new argument for considering Mary Poppins to be a Time Lord.
As the Trickster once said, "Reality is boring, that's why I change it whenever I can."
I'm just "The Man Who Viewed Too Much", and "Inner Toob" is a blog exploring and celebrating the 'reality' of an alternate universe in which everything that ever happened on TV actually takes place.
Most of my theories about the TV Universe come from thinking inside the box and thus can't be proven. But I've never been one to shy away from a tall tale.....
Remember: "The more you watch, the more you've seen!"
